Skiing.
Skiing. Credit: Maarten Duineveld on Unsplash

PSIA-certified ski instructor with the Palisades Tahoe ski team Greg Mainis hosts individual or group ski lessons or guided trips around the mountain. He started learning to ski when he was 5, competing in mogul competitions and powder 8 competitions throughout his career. He also shares his wealth of knowledge to his YouTube channel, most recently explaining why wider skis are bad for your knees.

Specifically he talks about a study that analyzed how wide skis impact your knee joints. Essentially because a wider ski pushes your foot further from the snow, turns put more stress on the knee joint than they would on skinnier skis.

So the answer is having multiple skis, which seems like a bit of a cheap answer, but he does provide a very solid alternative. Essentially, if you can have a quiver, grab something that’s >100mm underfoot for the deep powder days and grab something that’s 80-90mm for men and 75-85mm for women for the groomer days. If you can’t have two skis, grab something that’s around 100mm for men and 90mm for women as a single-ski quiver.

Honestly I probably would have recommended something along those lines before even knowing about the knee pain problem, but it’s good to know that relying to heavily on big ol’ wide skis can actually cause strain on your joints.

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